Welcome to Real Debate Wisconsin (RDW). This is primarily a conservative blog but we always welcome input from all points of view. Things get heated upon occasion but we ask that our readers do their best to keep things civil and respect all participants. We always welcome guest posts, so if there is something you would like to share feel free to email me at fkd1015 at yahoo dot com.

December 14, 2007

I'd talked with Tom on 10 or 12 occasions. A gentle and kind man. Honestly one of the brightest and sharpest minds I had ever encountered. Sometimes I had the feeling he had to dumb down everything he said so the rest of us could understand.

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

I recently contacted Dustin Block, formerly of the Racine Journal Times, to ask him about his new venture, Racinepost.com. I asked him where his idea came from, what he hoped to accomplish, etc. Rather than try to pick apart his reply I decided to just post it in its entirety.

Hi Fred,

Here's some info on Racine Post you asked for a few weeks back. Thanks for your interest ... I'm sure there are much more interesting things to write about!

There's really not much to say. RacinePost started as an experiment. I wanted to see if one person could create a comprehensive local news website by linking to traditional and new media, much like Matt Drudge does at the DrudgeReport. If a headline came from the JT, great. If it came from Real Debate, that's just good (and often better!). After working at the newspaper for 8 years, I realized there is very little difference in quality between many of the established blogs and commentators and reporters at newspapers like the JT. Bringing the two together, and throwing in some stories of my own, made sense.

Fortunately, for RacinePost's sake, I had some help. Pete Selkowe took an interest right away and immediately saw we had an opportunity to do more than I ever imagined. Not only could we collect news, we could provide an alternative, independent news source that countered a lot of the negative media surrounding our community. Truth is, we really care about Racine. We've lived here for many years, I met my wife and her family here, Pete is deeply involved with community organizations and really want to see it do well. More importantly, and too often missed, the community is doing well. We're trying to make room to share that story.

Truth is, anyone can report about courts and crime. The JT has that market cornered thanks to the mountains of easy-to-access information provided by police and court officials. If you look at the paper on any given day, at least half of their stories are based around crime. Those important stories, no doubt, but they're not the only stories. And crime is just one example. You point out the liberal leanings of the paper and provide an alternative. The writer behind Unplugged Caledonia saw that there was much to write about in the village, and started that excellent blog. Kay Schultz writes the democratic perspective. They're all excellent alternatives to a single media source - and, I believe, critically important to the health of our community.

My hope is more people take up blogs and start writing about Racine and Racine County. Imagine someone going to Racine City Council and County Board meetings and simply reporting what happens (something no one but the clerks do right now). Or writing a local environmental blog, or creating a really good blog on property taxes, John Lehman and Paul Ryan. We can complain about the JT (and the newspaper should be covered like any other organization), but it's a lot more fun to give it a try ourselves. Wouldn't you agree, Fred?

As for us working for the JT, there's not much to say. We both met a point where it was time to move along. I still have good friends who work for the paper and respect for many people there. Pete and I routinely check each other, though, to make sure we're not becoming an anti-JT blog. First of all, how boring would that be? Second, they're much more successful financially than we'll ever be, and they'll always have more resources at their disposal. We'll affect their news coverage; I suppose we already have. But we won't take away much of their business. Instead, we'll just keep looking for good stories, support the local independent media (like you do, Fred) as much as possible and see what develops.

There are two components to Racine Post. There is http://www.racinepost.com/ which is a Drudge like site with links to stories from in an around the community. As you look through that site you may notice a highlighted R or I. R's are Racine Post stories, I's are stories put forth by local independent media (blogs). The second part is the Racine Post blog.

I've been reading both of these sites since they started. It is clear that Pete and Dustin are trying to fill the gap and have a real community forum.

For the Racine reader this should be on your daily reading list, I have added links to both sites on my blog roll. For those outside of Racine I'm sure Dustin and Pete would not mind you stopping by from time to time.

For the political junkies, Dustin and Pete try and call things down the middle, though their true leanings do come through in their writing. I'll leave it up to you to figure out where they are coming from. One thing is certain, they care about the community and are trying their best to provide a positive resource, I admire that greatly.

McDermott, revered by many of his liberal constituents in Seattle, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night. A staff member in his Seattle office said that "if you know the congressman, you'd know why" he opposed the resolution.

Neither the Ramadan nor the Diwali resolutions drew any opposition. No one spoke against the Christmas resolution -- which stated that Christianity was the predominant faith in the U.S. and contributed greatly to the development of Western civilization and America -- leading King to draw his own conclusion.

Congresscritter more than willing to recognize every religion BUT Christianity. For those who do not understand the grousing about the war on Christmas, this is it.

Mike Huckabee's Low BlowBy Hugh HewittThursday, December 13, 2007When Mike Huckabee asked a New York Times' reporter, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers," he crossed a line he cannot uncross.

Previous to this he had played a game of teasing the anti-Mormon vote, and had been called on it by Charles Krauthammer and others. But Huckabee had maintained deniability. No more. Huckabee's obvious attempt to salt the mine and get the reporter to carry antt-Mormon rhetoric into the paper without Huckabee's fingerprints on it backfired, and the transparent attempt to use the MSM to further the anti-Mormon message was repulsive. Until he crossed that line, Huckabee remained a viable protest vote for conservative evangelicals who distrusted Romney's conversion on life issues. The hard core anti-Mormon fanatics are actually few in number and many of them are on the left --like Larry O'Donnell-- and Romney had successfully put the issue of his faith behind him with his speech at the Bush Library.

So what is the answer coming out of the big global warming summit in Bali? (why do they always have these things in tropical climates?)

It has been proposed that developed countries (the US) send money to undeveloped countries to help them catch up to us. We of course owe them for developing faster than they did.

Your price tag?

$780 per person annually, or $212 billion per year. Yes for the family of 4 your yearly energy hog carbon tax would be $3120. (funny I thought the value of the dollar was so worthless that nobody wanted them any more)

Oddly, the report acknowledges the $2.3 trillion spent on foreign aid over the last 50 years has not really helped all that much. But now in the name of global warming aided through some yet unimagined distribution source (my guess is Al Gore) things will be better.

And this is all this conference boils down to folks. We are supposed to pay for the sin of our success to those not as fortunate. Well us and China, except China wants nothing to do with this.

It is amazing isn't it that every time a number of countries get together to discuss how to fix the world the answer is always the same. The US should pay.

New Editor same old stuff from The Racine Journal Times. They have dissected the Boots & Sabers / James Buss issue with some strange conclusions.

Read carefully, reduce hysteria

Friday, December 7, 2007 11:26 PM CST

It’s difficult to distill the teacher-blogger incident in West Bend. There are so many examples of poor judgment here.It was unwise in the first place for teacher James Buss to post an Internet blog entry lauding the acts of the students who killed 13 and wounded 23 at Columbine High School. You may recall that in his post Buss complained about teachers and cited the Columbine killers: “They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!”He was merely being mischievous, he told police who came to question him after someone complained about his post. The police arrested him, which was the next bit of bad judgment. Maybe the police were playing it safe in a society sensitive to even the most indistinct threats, but the evidence wasn’t there, and the arrest led to widespread publicity which magnified the incident while committing the next misstep.News reports focused on the inflammatory parts of Buss’ post. The evidence that everyone missed or ignored was his subsequent comment. It read, “I am NOT advctingshootngteachrs,” (sic) according to Boots & Sabers, the conservative Web site where Buss made his comments.

In other words, the comment could be viewed in the same sense as that of someone who says, “I’ll kill him if he doesn’t get here on time.” It’s not an overt threat but a colloquial expression of strong feeling.Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens showed the one bit of good judgment in deciding not to charge Buss. Though offensive, Martens said, the comments fell under the speech protections of the First Amendment. What Buss’ verbiage amounts to, then, is another piece of the refuse we must endure if we are to maintain free speech for everyone.Buss still faces the possibility of discipline in Oak Creek where he is a high school chemistry teacher, and if school officials impose a harsh penalty it will be another in this string of poor decisions. Buss’ stupidity does not rise to the same level as hitting or molesting students. Let him return to his school, and let him suffer the snickers and whispers. Public shame and censure can be a much more powerful corrective than any written reprimand from a central office. They are also a consequence of accountability which is why many people seek the anonymity of the Internet.And here is the cautionary lesson for people who seriously follow unknown online scribblers: Although they are media darlings at present and can contain useful information, blogs are not automatically more serious or believable than the flyers one used to find stapled to utility poles.The Internet is merely the newest medium through which dubious old messages can be passed more quickly to a larger audience. There is nothing wrong with people communicating freely. Indeed, that principle is the foundation of many benefits in our society. By all means read what you wish. Just keep a bag of skepticism handy to leaven the assertions which you find.

I just don't know where to start with this.

Using hindsight the Journal Times has concluded that everyone over-reacted.

In the post Columbine world can we over-react enough? Hindsight is easy, leadership is hard.

Can you imagine the public outcry had this threat been a real one and kids had died? Imagine the police had known about said threat but had done nothing? It is a sad thing to say but crackpots who say things like Buss did need to be investigated. Dismiss the wrong crackpot and kids die needlessly.

The paper missed the point that the Superintendent of Schools in West Bend is the person who put forth the complaint. She found it credible enough to be concerned about the safety of her students.

I can only imagine the furor if a commenter on any blog had threatened students directly or indirectly and the police had been made aware of that threat and made the decision to ignore it. The newspaper would (justifiably so) be all over the police for ignoring that threat.

The paper also suggest that Buss should not face any disciplinary action from his school. I strongly disagree with that.

In the wake of Columbine and the recent Virginia Tech shootings any teacher dumb enough to invoke those tragedies in an attempt to make some cheap political point is not smart enough or does not show good enough judgement to be allowed to teach our children.

The paper mentions his subsequent comment, “I am NOT advctingshootngteachrs,” but they fail to understand that Buss was still making the same cheap political attack by pretending to be something he was not. It was his sole intent to make conservatives look like what he perceived them to be. In my mind this is close to hate speech.

If he had done exactly the same thing using a racial component instead of a political component I am sure the liberal editorial board would not be so lenient. In fact I am sure they would be calling for Buss' head on a silver platter.

The Journal Times ends with an odd attack on blogs, "Although they are media darlings at present and can contain useful information, blogs are not automatically more serious or believable than the flyers one used to find stapled to utility poles."

Yes there are credible bloggers out there and there are far less than credible bloggers out there. Bloggers build their credibility over time.

In the same way there are newspaper editorial boards out there to me that carry less credibility than flyers stapled to telephone poles.

I have no problem at all with that, it is a legitimate issue. I want to know more about Huckabee's pardons.

I have to wonder though why pardons issued by Bill Clinton for allies of his wife are not coming under similar scrutiny? If our media was so objective you would think they would tell that side of the story as well.